


Small Worlds in My Image and Likeness: More Worldbuilding

by OphisPeleia



Series: Forbears of what will be [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Dawn of the Jedi (Comics)
Genre: Meta, My ongoing love affair with bullet points, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23052550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OphisPeleia/pseuds/OphisPeleia
Summary: Further worldbuilding notes on the GFFA in the Forbears AU, circa 26,000 BBY. (Another meta dump to be read at your leisure or skipped entirely if you like.)
Series: Forbears of what will be [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/637034
Kudos: 1





	1. Corellia the Place, Plus General Notes

Since we last spoke, the action has spread to Coronet City, Corellia. A few notes about the place:

  * Corellia may be the most populous and resource-rich planet in the system, but it isn't alone. The Selonians in particular have had a presence throughout the system for a very, very long time.
  * Where'd the humans come from? Honestly, where don't humans come from? Those little buggers get everywhere. Constantly underfoot, those humans.
  * So in 25806 BBY, a Rakatan force from Agamar, led by Predor Tul'kar, invaded and conquered the system.
  * Tul'kar passed up the chance to become dictator of the new addition to the Infinite Empire for deliciously scandalous reasons, leaving it to then-Predor Illai. Illai is horrid and likes feeding people to his pet monster when they piss him off, but that's pretty normal for Rakatan dictators.
  * The inhabitants absolutely made them work for it, and by the time we catch up with them in 25791 BBY, there's a thriving resistance movement that's been a thorn in Illai's side for the entire fifteen years and is now making real progress.
  * It doesn't help that the Rakatan culture we've already seen at work elsewhere leaves them consistently underestimating women, elders, and the lower classes, which the resistance is happy to take advantage of.
  * Combine that with Rakatan dismissiveness of Corellia's family-oriented culture, and of course that old woman is constantly visiting her dozens of grandchildren. That's just a thing humans do, she's definitely not running a spy ring under our noses, right?
  * The humans of Corellia speak their own distinctive variety of Basic, with what sounds to us like a Spanish accent. And yes, the planetary human populations of Corellia, Tython (mostly but not all American varieties), and Coruscant (assorted British accents, varying by region and social stratum) all think each other talk funny.
  * Rakatan, particularly Low Rakatan, is pretty widely understood; of course you want to know what the Rakata are up to, or what they're ordering you to do. But too much pride in speaking it ~correctly~ is the mark of a collaborator.
  * The Infinite Empire has a comic industry. Yep. There are suspicions about the writers of the Princess Katoaa series, whose heroine outwardly performs proper Rakatan femininity but usually triumphs by violating the Empire's ideas of morality and good sense.
  * Corellia's holodrama industry has taken some knocks and been bent to the needs of the Rakatan government, but they're still around. Resistance operative Cal Solo had bit roles in a few holos before the invasion—mostly the sort of dreck that makes new recruits go "ancestors' eyes, you were in _that?"_ when they find out.



A bit on Corellian traditional religion:

  * The main focus is ancestor veneration, where the dead are held to remain as part of the Force, which contains the wisdom and strength of all ancestors collectively.
  * Force-sensitives are thought to be particularly favored by the ancestors but have the responsibility to use it well.
  * Light is a prominent metaphor for the Force and spirituality in general.
  * To that end, worship spaces are furnished with plasma balls like the one at the end of TPM (poor communities will have one in a public shrine and candles or electric imitation plasma balls at home, while richer folk will have their own plasma balls, and all of them have elaborately decorated housings of some sort).
  * Individual families have home altars, and communities have larger public spaces with prayer rooms and shrines to important figures of the community's past.
  * Celebrations involve light shows and fireworks, though those were suppressed in the name of "safety" by the Rakata.
  * Decor in worship spaces and ceremonial clothing tends toward a white/light-colored/metallic scheme, with solar/lunar symbols, stylized flames, and radial symmetry.
  * The dead are cremated and the ashes made into soul diamonds—a recent development in the grand scheme of things, but once the technology was widely available, it caught on quickly.
  * Soul diamonds are generally displayed on the home altar, but can be worn to invoke that person's strength and support.
  * They can also be meditated on in the light of the altar ball/lamp to connect more actively to the person in the Force. (It's easy for snooty Tythonians to see this as a crude imitation of meditating on a kyber crystal's brilliance in the Force, if they really want to get slapped.)



On the local wildlife:

  * Remember the Corellian hounds from Solo? Weren't they adorable? Such good babies? Shush, yes they were. They're cute (if slobbery) friends who need lots of petting.
  * Cross Dictator Illai and you might get fed to Ferocious, the very large and hungry creature that lives in the pools in the throne room. So far we've noted a crest, some very large and pointy teeth, and a body plan and skin texture reminiscent of an extremely large bullfrog. What is that thing, and where did Illai come across such a beast? Don't ask me.
  * Everyone loves purrgils, right? Now just imagine the amazing things you could accomplish by befriending them to the point where they'll let your spaceship hitch a ride.



As for Coronet City itself:

  * After centuries of inter-regional strife, it was decided the newly unified planet would have a newly built capital.
  * It was built over the site of a former Selonian tunnel complex that had since been largely abandoned. Those tunnels ended up serving our heroes well.
  * Just because the city was planned doesn't mean it was planned _well_. A disastrously-timed mishap with destroyed plans and young children being drafted to help restore them is blamed to this day for the city's infamously demented layout. (True? Seriously, it's that bad, I'm inclined to believe it.)
  * When the Rakata took over, they flattened an entire neighborhood in central Coronet to build the dictator's palace. It's not just his residence, it's home to courtiers, military officers, and their families, as well as a large number of governmental offices.
  * They also added the Temple of the Purifiers on the outskirts of the city, a facility for the Rakata to dispose of those dead who can't or won't be ritually eaten.
  * Well, it's only called the Temple of the Purifiers when the Rakata are listening. The rest of the time, it's the Great Mushroom Temple, because damned if it doesn't look exactly like a gigantic puffball.



A few quick notes on Force stuff:

  * Shen's particular Force talent, when we meet him, manifests as giving the people around him the worst waking nightmares their minds have to offer. Very nice of him.
  * More specifically, he has a strong ability to project emotions through the Force. Maybe in another universe where he's less messed up, they're nice emotions, but our Shen is a ball of trauma, anger, and self-loathing, so that's what he's putting out there.
  * So getting hit with that full-force stream of horrible dredges up all the worst contents of a person's mind.
  * In case it wasn't made clear in-story, Amaya sees shatterpoints, both literal and metaphorical, kind of like Mace Windu many centuries later.
  * So we saw the World Between Worlds and went, "hey, it's free real estate". There are now entrances on multiple planets, and someone who knows how to access it can use it to travel clear across the galaxy at will.
  * Creepy vision caves, like the ones on Dagobah and Ahch-to, are now WBW entrances; the creepy visions are the Force pushing the person to deal with their issues and get into a calm and balanced headspace before accessing something so powerful.




	2. Biographical Notes

Alia Antilles:

  * Alia was a schoolteacher. Then the Rakata invaded, she was badly injured rescuing students when her school was burned, one thing led to another, and she ended up leading the resistance movement in Coronet.
  * Does her last name sound familiar? She's a distant cousin of Wedge, though not a direct ancestor.



Nour Novar:

  * It's good to have a chemist on your side when you need to do some poisoning. Nour followed zher mother into the discipline and inherited her underground lab (Hala could be a bit paranoid at times). The jury's still out on where zher love of trashy comics came from.



Betl Duine:

  * Betl handles the resistance's spies and other covert operatives, including Cal. Oh, sorry, her very large family of nieces and nephews and grandchildren, nothing to see here, certainly not a ring of spies infiltrating the dictator's government, do be a dear and move along.



Thel Beli:

  * Every revolutionary movement needs a mustachioed military leader. Thel is our heroes'. The mustache is magnificent.



Amaya Rann:

  * Amaya is the group's resident Force user. Sometimes she fights, sometimes she serves as the movement's inspirational pretty face; they don't have enough people for someone as versatile as her to hyperspecialize.
  * If her name sounds familiar, yes, she's the older sister of Tamid "Xesh" Rann, who we met in previous installments.
  * Her power of seeing shatterpoints comes in super handy, no matter which of her multiple hats she's wearing that day.
  * She was going to study physics, but then the awful Rakata had to come and invade. Damn them.



Dictator Illai:

  * Illai was one of the predors involved in the conquest of Corellia, though he wasn't the one running the show.
  * So normally, he wouldn't have been the one to become dictator of the newly conquered planet afterwards, but when Tul'kar passed it up, he was next in line.
  * His philosophy that insulting and tearing down his subordinates is the best way to teach and motivate them makes him...rather tedious to work for, shall we say.
  * He started out with just the normal Rakatan level of paranoia and erratic behavior, but the terminal illness affecting his brain has made him steadily worse.



Shen:

  * Shen is Illai's absolute terror of a Force Hound.
  * It's easy to underestimate him and assume a meek little thing like Shen must be soft-hearted and mostly harmless, right up until you see him in action.
  * I mean, there's a Force Hound's necessary ferocity and compelled loyalty to their owner, and then there's Shen giving absolutely no fucks who he hurts once a fight breaks out.
  * Also, he's painfully awkward to interact with, and his power is super creepy. No one's having a good time here. Especially not Shen.



Garon Jard:

  * Garon is a former Force Hound who made a break for it during the fighting in the Tythos system.
  * He was taken as a child in a raid on Alderaan, though the planet was never successfully conquered.
  * He's seen enough violence to make him a committed pacifist (and vegan). He's certainly not naive enough to think violence is never necessary, or that it could ever be completely eradicated, but he's pretty firm on wanting to seek other solutions first, second, and third before picking up a lightsaber.
  * And now he's had some philosophy lessons from Rajivari and is getting Ideas. Uh-oh.
  * He's still pretty angry, he's just learned better coping methods. Like rage-embroidery. Nope, not kidding.




End file.
